


evermore

by k0skareeves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Breaking Up & Making Up, Christmas, Developing Relationship, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28072290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k0skareeves/pseuds/k0skareeves
Summary: But perhaps there's just another reason why she's feeling so warm, and her body is buzzing and her cheeks feel flushed. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Jon Snow is here, because where else would he be during Christmas if not here? He’s still family to the Starks, even if she pushed him away. And it's been five years, four months and ten days, and yes, she knows this by heart. She keeps count. When you shatter someone’s world, a part of you breaks too. And maybe she felt like she’s been missing something all this long.Jon & Sansa, and the road that leads them to happiness. Somewhat of a Holiday fic.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 113





	evermore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lcdysansa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lcdysansa/gifts).



> this is a christmas present to maria. she's someone i love very much and that i owe a lot to. babe, thank you for keeping me company during this hellish year, for making me laugh, for drying my tears even though we're miles away and for loving taylor swift the way you do. you inspired me to write this fic and i hope it can bring you some joy and warmth in the cold weather. i love you a lot and i'm forever greatful to have you as a friend.
> 
> the title of this fic is from evermore, by taylor swift, and it is also inspired by the songs champagne problems, tis the damn season and evermore.

Sometimes, things are meant to end.

Sometimes, the ending is just the beginning of something else, something better, something that might feel terribly painful at first, but it will make sense later. All the pain, all the sadness and sorrow, it will all have been for a reason. And things will be good again, once you least expect them to be.

This is one of those times.

* * *

The thing is, Sansa Stark doesn’t know this. She thinks, with all the certainty in her heart, that the pain she’s feeling will wreck her to pieces, leaving nothing behind. She’s scared. So scared that she decides it’s better if she runs. Half of her thinks running is the only possible choice after everything that has happened, now matter how painful it will feel to leave everything behind. To leave everyone she knows and loves so much. To leave the town she grew up in. The other half of her has been dreaming of running since she was a little girl. Dreaming of being anywhere but home, of doing big things, seeing big places, achieving her dreams. Dreams of fame and glory and sharing with the world all the things she had to say. And ever since she fell for Jon Snow, while she was still a freshman in college, after knowing him for half her life, she thought that reckless part of her had been lost. Forgotten, buried deep, no longer a truth in her heart. She was finally happy, no more restlessness, a peaceful quietude in her mind that she had never experienced before.

Then her father died.

They don’t talk about how grief changes you. They talk about the pain, sure, and they talk about the sadness, the shattering of your heart. But they don’t really talk about how grief can change your very core, and make you do things that you never thought of doing, make you be someone who could hurt others in a way you never thought you could.

Sansa Stark is experiencing that right now.

Which is why she decided to run.

Except she can’t just leave Jon behind. She can’t just leave him hanging. She’s known him since she was ten. He was not her first kiss, but he was definitely her first love. He _is_ her first love, real love, not just a teenage crush. And she’s gonna hurt him, despite that being the last thing she wants. That’s why she’s putting so much work on this speech, agonizing over what her words will be while she gets ready to leave. She’s already gonna break his heart, she needs to at least try to explain it to him why. She needs to at least see him one last time, even if he looks so much like her father to the point that seeing him makes her chest ache, makes her lungs shatter and her breathing stop for a second. It hurts, badly, and she doesn't think she can handle another minute of it. Of the hurt and the grief and also of the insanity that creeps in bit by bit inside her brain. She doesn’t like feeling like this, and running away from the memories, from the pain and the loss and the sadness seem like a great plan.

But it’s not as if she doesn’t love Jon. She does. She loves him with all her heart, and that’s what hurts the most. She loved him at nineteen and she loves him at twenty two and she’ll probably love him until she’s a hundred. She’ll love him from beyond the grave, and wherever people go when they die. And that’s why she has to do this, because she loves him too much to force him to stay with her when she’s not herself anymore, when she’s broken, when she’s ruined. And she could never force him to leave Winterfell, the town he loves so much, the town they both grew up in, the town where her daddy’s grave rests, not too far from Jon’s mother. How could he ever leave Winterfell? She can’t ask that of him, and most importantly, she doesn't think she wants him to come. She knows she’s the one broken, the one who needs to run, and that’s something she needs to do alone. 

So running she’ll do, just after she explains to him _why._

Jon Snow, on the other hand, has no idea of all this. He thinks tonight is just another date night with the girl he loves, the girl he plans on asking to marry him today, because it’s been almost four years since they’ve been together, and life is short, he knows that well. There’s no one in the world he loves more than her, and he wants to spend the rest of the time he has left on this earth by her side. He’s twenty five, the same age his mom was when she died, and he feels ready. He feels sure. Sansa Stark is the one for him. And yes, she’s been distant, but her father died a little less than a month ago, and Jon knows how much that hurts. He was only nine when his mother died but he can still remember the pain, and he has had to live with it ever since, to grow with the loss, and fuck if that didn’t wreck him. It left him broken. So broken he never thought he’d be able to love anyone else, but then the Starks came, and then there was Sansa, and if he’s sure of anything on this earth is that she is _the one._ Thus the ring resting on his pocket, thus the bouquet of daisies, because she actually prefers them to roses, thus the reason why he shuts down the feeling of uneasiness once he goes to pick her up from her mother’s place and she spends the whole drive quietly staring out the window. He tries to brush it off, and focus on the proposal, because he’s nervous, yes. After all this time he still gets nervous around her. Because he loves her so much, and he thinks he could die for her, really, he could.

He just never thought she would make him feel like dying.

* * *

The thing about pain is that it fades with time.

Not all types of pain. Some last for an eternity, becoming a part of your soul, molding into you until you get used to feeling like that, and even though it hurts it's also okay, because that's just who you are now.

Other pains fade, though. A broken heart can heal. A bruised pride can mend. A shattered love can find its way again, if not to how it was, at least to something new, unexpected at first, but that was really meant to happen all along.

It just takes some time, and some courage too, for things to work out.

* * *

Five years is a long time.

Sansa Stark sure as hell thinks so, because it's been five years since she's set foot in this house, still things look the same. It doesn't feel as empty though, as it did when she first left. Her father is still gone, and yet the house feels warmer, louder, livelier. 

Her heart feels like that, too.

Perhaps it's because this is the first time in five years that she's seen her entire family at once. Her mother and her siblings will come and visit her in King's Landing from time to time, yes, but never all at once, and it's definitely been a long while since she's seen all of her aunts and uncles, all of her cousins too. Perhaps the reason why she's so warm is because it's Christmas, and this is the first time she's been home for her father's favorite holiday after his passing. Everyone is here, in his house, and they will continue to be here until New Year's, because that's just how her family does things. And she has missed all this. She really has.

But perhaps there's just another reason why she's feeling so warm, and her body is buzzing and her cheeks feel flushed. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Jon Snow is here, because where else would he be during Christmas if not here? He’s still family to the Starks, even if she pushed him away. And it's been five years, four months and ten days, and yes, she knows this by heart. She keeps count. When you shatter someone’s world, a part of you breaks too. And maybe she felt like she’s been missing something all this long.

Five years is a long time. And Jon Snow is thirty. Jon Snow has grown a full beard, rebuilt his mother’s house and got his PhD in History, but he also likes building wooden furniture in his free time. And Sansa is so fucking jealous, because she knows all this, and because he seems _happy._ She, with her three Grammys at the age of twenty seven, with her penthouse in King’s Landing and her famous friends, she, who ran away and made a new life for herself behind the name of Alayne Stone, she is _jealous._ And maybe a little angry, too, when she has no right to be. She’s the one who left, she knows. But Jon has been at her mother’s house for three hours now and not once has he looked at her. And alright, she gets it. Of course she does. She broke his heart. She broke her own heart too, but people tend to look past on that. She doesn’t even know if he knows how much she cried after he dropped her home that night. He probably thinks she hates him. Or not even hate, because he must think she doesn’t even think about him long enough to feel such strong emotions towards him. She would think the same if she was him. Or at least she thinks she would. Right now, her brain isn’t making all that much sense, because she’s had a whole bottle of red wine to drink, and Jon still hasn’t looked at her, and she’s home, but her father is not, and everyone seem happy to see her even if she did bail on them five years ago, and it’s strange how people can forgive each other so easily when they love each other, and she wonders if Jon still loves her because maybe the thing that’s making her feel warm and a little dizzy is that fact that seeing him again after five years makes her feel all these emotions that she didn’t think she would feel, including love.

Safe to say, Sansa Stark is a little overwhelmed.

Which is why she leaves the house, without her coat, even though it just snowed this afternoon.

It’s just meant to be for a quick minute, just so she can clear her own thoughts. She knows this, just five minutes in their driveway and she’ll be back inside, and she’ll feel a lot better, because if there’s one thing she can admit to missing without a shame is the cold weather of Winterfell.

Just five minutes.

Jon Snow, however, doesn’t know that. He has no idea that the girl he loves - _loved, Jon, loved. And she’s a woman now. -_ is just going out for some fresh air. He doesn’t know that she’s planning on coming back in a few minutes, he doesn’t know that she misses the cold, he doesn’t know that she still dreams of his face from time to time, and the way it felt to kiss him, and how much she’s been thinking lately of how different her life would be if she had told him yes instead of no. He doesn’t know a single one of these things, and there’s a lot more he doesn’t know, but what he does know is there’s no chance in hell that he’ll let her leave again without giving her a piece of his mind, because maybe he’s a lot angry with her, and maybe seeing her tonight had his hands shaking and his breathing accelerating and maybe he made a point in not even saying hello to her because he wasn’t sure if he would be able to hear her voice again in person. He’s just seen her on his little TV for five years, and he heard her songs and he wonders which ones she wrote about him and if she hurt as much as he is. _Was._ He’s okay now, he’s indifferent. Except when he sees her leaving through the corner of his eyes he has to excuse himself from the party because there’s no way, there’s no fucking way…

“...you’re leaving again, right?”

The words come out of his mouth without him meaning to, loud and harsh and so heavy that she feels them like a slap. So Sansa opens her eyes, turning to face him, and Jon sees himself on her blue eyes. And he can’t quite breathe, because she looks just as beautiful as she did before, maybe even more so now that she’s grown. And time passes and things change and maybe all that anger that he was so sure of feeling has faded a little at the sight of her eyes on him. 

“I was just catching some air.” She tells him, unable to look away. “I missed the cold.”

The flush on his cheeks make her smile. He rubs the back of his neck with his palm. “Well, hi.”

“Hi, Jon.”

Then she shivers a little, because this is Winterfell and she's not wearing a coat and maybe she chose a very flattering dress for the occasion, and although she looks beautiful there's not enough fabric covering her body. And Jon notices, of course, because how could he not, so he asks her if she wants to go back inside, and just like that they're talking again, and things are okay. They talk through the night, about light things, her life in the capitol, his job as a college professor, only light things though, only things that won't hurt them. Jon lingers, because that's what he usually does, and that means they also do the dishes together, and put things away and help clean up and when they bump shoulders in the tight pantry he finally kisses her, in the dark, and she's expecting it. She's expecting it because how could she see him again after all this time and not feel something? She couldn't, no matter how much she would like to pretend that she could, and neither could he, no matter how hard he tried to resist her tonight. When they kiss it feels right, and it feels right to keep kissing, it feels right to ask her to come over to his house and it feels right to tell him yes this time, even if last time she told him no. But they don't talk about that, no, they don't talk about anything really, they just kiss and grab their coats and try to stay quiet because everyone else is already gone or asleep and they feel like teenagers sneaking out of the house so they laugh all the way to Jon's place. Sansa thinks about how much she missed riding in on his truck, because of course it’s still the same, muddy and rusty and just as loud as she remembers. And she laughs, because even though he’s kind of a big shot now he still refuses to give up on the car. She laughs again when they’re in his bedroom, and he pulls down the straps of her dress to kiss her breasts and makes a stunned face to her nipple piercing, only to shut her up with another kiss, more urgent, more needy. Clothes are taken off and sheets are messed up and Jon takes pride in touching her, tasting her, making her cry out his name two times before he's even inside her. There's not much talking or laughing now, just their breaths and their moans and their hands on each other, the sweat of their skins mixed together, the way their bodies seem to remember how good they were at this.

They were good at a lot of things.

When it's over, Sansa stays. There's a silent agreement that it's okay for her to stay, even if she has a plane ticket to KL sitting in her bag at home, even if he has been on two dates with one of his colleagues from Wintertown University. Sansa stays and Jon lets her, even if they both know this probably isn't a good idea. In the morning he'll make her breakfast and he'll take her to bed again and when he finally drops her off at her mother’s she'll feel strangely at peace, and he'll feel the same, because time heals pain, and it mends hearts too, sometimes.

* * *

Solitude is also something to be appreciated.

In solitude, one is able to reconnect with oneself. To see things through a different perspective. People are faced with some ugly truths while in solitude, that's a fact, but there's also beauty in the silence. There's inner peace. And some enlightenment too, if you allow yourself to go through that.

* * *

Sansa discovers solitude during quarantine.

* * *

No one thought the world would go to shit, but it does.

For the first time in a long time, Sansa Stark spends her birthday alone. It's March, and she was caught off guard by a global pandemic. Everyone was. And that's terrifying, because she's alone. She's alone, and scared, and sad, and everything seems like utter chaos.

In April, she tries to get her shit together, because she’s twenty eight now and she shouldn’t be this terrified of being alone.

In May she succumbs to boredom.

June is a blur to her, sadly. But she celebrates her mother’s birthday over zoom with her siblings, and she reads three books in a week, and she thinks that she could be okay for a moment.

It only lasts a moment.

July comes and she’s down.

She can't leave the house. She can't write any songs either. Believe me, she tried. Nothing seems to work and now she's thinking of selling everything and moving to Essos, and living off selling sheep. Can she even take care of sheep? She can't. But it's now July and it’s been five months and she might be losing her mind, just a little bit.

Which is why she starts going through all of her things. All the stuff she has, physical and digital, and she contemplates how many things she has accumulated in her twenty eight years of living. She then decides that's too much of it, too many things and memories and she needs to get rid of everything. 

Which is also a reason for her to be doing what she's doing right now.

(The other reason is one she has yet to admit to herself, but it’s something that has been lingering in the back of her mind since last December.)

**July 21st 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**Hi!**

**Is this even your email? I don't know anymore. You probably changed it by now, but I guess it's worth a shot.**

**It's 3 am and I'm drunk. You can't judge me, though, because we're in the middle of a pandemic and I have nothing else to do at the moment. So I'm drunk, and I'm deleting a bunch of my old emails. And I found this one, which is why I'm replying to you now, despite the fact that it's been almost ten years since you sent me this. I was shy back then, I guess. And I probably already had a crush on you, so there's that. I hope this isn't weird of me to say. Keep in mind that I am drunk, on tequila of all things, can you believe? I wonder what poor little college freshman Sansa thinks of me now. Hopefully she wouldn't judge me too much. Hopefully YOU won't judge me too much. If you do, fuck you!!! But seriously, don't judge me :(**

**Anyway, I'm just writing to say that it was nice of you to write to me back then and offer to show me around campus. You really didn't have to. I know how much you thought I was annoying at first and how much you hate people, so that was INCREDIBLY nice of you. "Nice Jon". I don't think anyone has ever called you that, but you were nice. You still are, I think. I'm not sure right now, because I don’t know you like I used to, but I’m to blame for that.**

**I'm the one who's not nice though, but you know that already, so we shouldn't talk about it, or else we'll both be sad and I'm already too drunk to be sad :(**

**Okay, I don't know how to finish this email. I hope you're okay, and taking care of yourself, and I hope this all ends soon, cause I might be going insane, and that would be awful, right? I’m too pretty to go crazy. So I'll try to be sane, and not be sad, and stick to wine instead of tequila.**

**Okay, I should go now.**

**Bye bye, Jon!!!**

**Xxxxxxxxxx**

**\- S**

When she wakes up in the morning - or, to be more accurate, at two pm in the afternoon - is to a notification of an unread email on her phone. An email from Pr. Snow, PhD.

Safe to say, her heart is racing almost as hard as her head is hurting.

She opens the email.

**July 21st 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**Please don't drink yourself to death during isolation. Your mother would be devastated and Arya would need to become the pride and joy of the family, and we both know that's not happening anytime soon.**

**As a matter of fact this is still my email address. I'm a very nostalgic man, it seems. Also, you're welcome, even if it took you nine years to say thank you. I would have given you the tour out of the pure pressure that Robb put on me. And no, I did not find you annoying back then, I was just pretending to do that because I was also a kid myself and kids are dumb. Believe me, I know. I teach a bunch of them.**

**As for quarantine, everything is fine on my end. All jokes aside, I hope you're taking care of yourself. Tequila is a strong drink and we both know you're a lightweight. Don't even try to deny it.**

**All my best,**

**\- J**

**P.S: Yes, I'm nice. But I don't let my students know this.**

**July 23rd 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**I was gonna say sorry for sending you a drink email, but I chickened out. Instead, it's now two days later and I will make fun of you for saying "all my best". You really are an old man now, aren't you? This is so funny to me, I always knew you were old fashioned but damn, this one came fast.**

**Xxxxxxxx**

**\- S**

**P.S: Don't worry. I won't drink myself to death. My manager wouldn't let me. I will drink myself until I can write some more songs though, because otherwise the capitalist machine will forget all about me, and I won't be able to make a living. How sad is that?**

**July 23rd 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**First of all, fuck you. Respectfully.**

**Second, I'm only three years older than you, so don't act like you're not terrified of turning 30. It's a great character building experience. You’re gonna love it.**

**Lastly, what's up with songwriting? Aren't you supposed to be a genius on that? Grammy winners usually are. (This is a genuine joke. Try to remember I have no sense of humor.)**

**All my FUCKING best,**

**\- J**

**P.S: wouldn't it be better if we had this conversation over text?**

**July 23rd 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**Songwriting sucks. My brain is apparently fried. I don't know what else to say except for everything I could come up with during isolation is utter garbage. But thanks for asking.**

**Also, did you just try to ask me for my number? That was smooth lol but no, it wouldn't be better, because like this is fun. It's just like writing letters!!!!**

**Xxxxxxxxxx**

**\- S**

**July 23rd 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**I think you’re too old to be using “lol” in a sentence.**

**Also, your brain is not fried. You've just been inside for too long, and inspiration is a hard thing to achieve when you're not receiving stimulation.**

**Is there any chance you could go back home? Maybe some company would help.**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**P.S: no, I was not trying to ask for your number. But just in case I was, would you give it to me?**

**July 24th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**You should try adding lol to your vocabulary, and maybe some emojis too. It’s fun. You need to live a little.**

**If I were to go home I would be putting mom at risk. Idk if Robb told you but she’s not doing so good with her health lately, and I absolutely won’t risk it. Besides, being locked away with my mother for months on end may be the thing that drives me to day drinking, and I'm trying to avoid that. Merlot is just too good so I might start anyway.**

**Also, you're so cute, you sent me love!!! So I'll send it back to you.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**P.S: No, you can't get my number. I'm not that easy.**

**July 25th 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**I already suspected that being with your mom wasn't an option, but I have to say I hate the thought of you alone out there.**

**Please take care of yourself. And yes, avoid the day drinking. That's smart, no matter how much you love Merlot.**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**P.S: I could always ask your brother for your number.**

**July 25th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**No, you couldn't, because you don't like when people are in your business and he would sure want to know why you're asking.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**P.S: Thank you for caring about me. I care about you too, I hope you know that.**

**July 25th 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**You're right. Your brother is too nosy for his own good.**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**P.S: I know you care, but that's still nice to hear. Or in this case, read.**

**July 25th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**I'm always right, dummy.**

**Except for the one time I wasn't.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**July 25th 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**?????????????????**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**July 26th 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**This is a bold move, but I think you should answer me.**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**July 27th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**This is a bolder move, but I think you should ask me to spend isolation with you.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**July 27th 2020**

**???????????**

**July 27th 2020**

**sans, you wont even give me your number**

**July 27th 2020**

**like seriously what the hell**

**July 27th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**Like seriously, ask me.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**July 28th 2020**

**Dear Sansa,**

**Would you like to come over to my house in Winterfell and spend the rest of isolation (even though we have no idea how much longer this will last and I don't even have your phone number and also we had sex in December and never talked about it and your family is basically my family but we haven’t talked this much in years) with me?**

**Love,**

**\- J**

**P.S: you're killing me, just so you know**

**July 29th 2020**

**Dear Jon,**

**Yes.**

**Love,**

**\- S**

**P.S: I would say sorry for killing you but something tells me you don't mind all that much this time**

* * *

Sometimes, things are meant to end.

Sometimes, the ending is just the beginning of something else, something better, something that might feel terribly painful at first, but it will make sense later. All the pain, all the sadness and sorrow, it will all have been for a reason. And things will be good again, once you least expect them to be. The pain won’t last forever, and happiness will come again, at some point, because life works in mysterious ways.

For Jon and Sansa, this is one of those times.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you all so much for reading! this oneshot holds a special place in my heart, because i wrote it after a long time of not writing anything and i had a lot fun while doing it. i hope you have enjoyed it as much as i did, and im so grateful for all the love and support that you guys always give me. your kudos and comments mean the world to me <3


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